


A Shot in the Dark

by batonblue



Series: Loosely Sequential Brimel One-Shots [2]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF JT Tarmel, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Brimel, Drama, Drug Abuse, Explicit Language, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Male Slash, Protectiveness, Psychological Torture, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:40:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22110463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batonblue/pseuds/batonblue
Summary: Malcolm is abducted by a stranger with a dark vendetta.  Gil and JT are forced to watch from afar, racing against time to find him before it's too late.(Tags for established relationship, angst, drama and intense whump. Warnings for language, mild sexual content, and torture/violence)
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright/JT Tarmel
Series: Loosely Sequential Brimel One-Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587901
Comments: 13
Kudos: 143





	A Shot in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eringeosphere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eringeosphere/gifts), [theyhulk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyhulk/gifts), [McRaider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/McRaider/gifts), [Rosedraquia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosedraquia/gifts).



Two strange things happen on January 3rd.

The first one should have been indicative of the second. Malcolm is late.

While it’s not exactly a common occurrence, the team knows their profiler well enough by this point to write it off. Chalk it up to the usual storm of volatility that seems to circle the kid everywhere he goes. An aura of chaos and eccentricity they can occasionally harness into something productive.

By ten o’clock Gil is both irritated and concerned enough to call him. It goes to voicemail and he doesn’t bother leaving a message.

JT has already sent a handful of texts. Bright hasn’t answered those either, and he’s not ashamed to admit that he’s worried.

It’s been just over a week since the cop spent Christmas with Malcolm. 

A week since he met his family, took their blossoming relationship to a new level on all counts. Said a handful of fateful words to each other that changed nothing and everything. It’s been painful and awkward and beautiful; it’s been more than he ever could have hoped for. The best thing he’s had in years. 

It gets under his skin faster than he can blink, and before he knows it JT feels like a different man. Lighter. He smiles more and snaps less. Things roll off his back that used to sit and fester like old wounds. 

With Malcolm in his life, JT thinks he likes who he’s becoming.

Strange Thing Number Two strikes at noon. 

A plain paper envelope addressed to Lieutenant Gil Arroyo arrives at the on-call desk downstairs. It’s conspicuously bare of either return address or postage. Inside is a single piece of paper with a URL typed out in black ink. 

“Is it just me, or did our day just get super shitty?” Dani sounds as anxious as JT feels as she looks over Gil’s shoulder at the ominous envelope.

“It’s not just you,” Gil mutters, heading for the privacy of the conference room 

JT and Dani both follow.

The URL redirects them to a website, a black and white live feed. There’s a cement room with bare walls and concrete pillars. A lone figure strapped to a tall metal chair.

“ _Fuck._ ” JT hears himself say it, but he doesn’t feel his lips move. Doesn’t feel anything but cold. Like all the life drains out of him and leaves behind a shell. 

“Is that Malcolm?” Dani leans in closer to the screen, squinting at the image.

_It’s Malcolm_ , JT wants to tell her. Wants to say he’d know him anywhere. That even though the kid is slumped in his seat, chin hanging against his chest, the cop knows. There’s a dark trickle of blood running down Bright’s face from his hairline, spilling onto his shirt, fanning out in a macabre rorschach pattern. 

Gil looks stricken, a hand over his mouth as he watches the screen. 

“What is this shit?” JT is almost shaky with rage, fear, sudden adrenaline. “Who the fuck would—”

The answers don’t keep them waiting for long.

The camera shakes lightly. A figure in a ski mask and dark sunglasses moves into frame, blocking their view of the chair behind him. 

“Lieutenant Arroyo.” The man’s voice is strangely flat, distorted. “You probably don’t remember me.”

“Gil,” Dani whispers, even knowing the man on the other end of the feed can’t hear them. “Do you know who this is?”

Gil shakes his head, but he’s studying the screen carefully, his skin the color of ash.

“I sent your message to the NYPD, so I’m sure they’re watching this with you. They won’t be able to help.”

The man’s voice is cold. Calculated, perfectly level underneath the mask of modulation. He seems completely calm, and his unsettling confidence doesn’t sit well with any of them.

“You worked a case eight years ago.” The masked figure stares directly into the camera, almost like he can see them. “Because of your ineptitude and negligence, I lost someone very dear to me. It’s your turn.”

“I don’t remember,” Gil says, shaking his head. “I’ve worked thousands of cases over the years…”  
  


JT’s mind is racing, running through the next steps. They need a plan, and they need it fast. 

“We need to try to trace that package, get cyber-crimes on tracking the weblink… There’s got to be something we can do.”

“I’ll get them on the phone,” Dani agrees quickly, pulling out her cell. She’s just as rattled as they are, but having something to do, having a plan, is comforting.

“Your wife passed away. No parents or siblings. You never had any children.” The masked man states the facts robotically, his voice never wavering. “Your only weakness…” 

He pauses, turns to look at the profiler over his shoulder. The implication is clear. 

The man returns his attention to the camera and cocks his head. “Well... He put himself in federal protection. Out of my reach. You can imagine how thrilled I was to hear that he was finally back in New York.”

“How long has he been planning this?” JT is horrified by the implications. Knowing that someone has been following Malcolm, tracing his movements for years. Waiting for a moment to strike. 

“We need to get someone sorting through your old cases from 2011-12,” Dani gushes, holding her phone away from her ear. “I’ve got cyber on the way up here, but we need to pull manpower in on this ASAP.”

“Do it.” Gil’s voice wavers. He can’t tear his eyes away from the laptop screen.

The man steps away from the camera, heads for Malcolm. Circles the strange metal chair built of industrial steel and heavy bolts, and stops in front of the profiler. 

JT notices for the first time that Bright is hooked up to an IV, tubes threading out of his arm where it’s strapped to the arm of the chair, winding up to a hanging bag. There’s a table half out of frame, covered in tools and instruments JT can’t quite make out. It’s all-too-clear what they’re intended for, the dark implications made worse by the uncertainty. 

From this angle they can tell their suspect is a large man, tall and broad-shouldered. The sight of him looming over Malcolm, massive and threatening, sends waves of cold nausea churning through JT’s gut. Sparks every protective instinct in his body but he can’t _do anything._ He can’t put himself between Bright and the threat, can’t stop what’s about to happen.

They both saw it coming from a mile away, but both Gil and JT still flinch when the stranger brings a heavy fist down hard across Malcolm’s face. The profiler jerks as his head snaps to the side.

“Goddamit,” JT breathes out, feels his heart lurching in his chest. Raw adrenaline is pumping through his veins with no possible outlet, leaving him jittery and nauseous. 

Malcolm coughs harshly. The cop watches dark blood drip down his chin and feels like hitting something himself. Preferably, _someone_.

“Wake up,” the figure monotones, staring down at his captive impassively. 

Malcolm’s head lolls on his shoulders; it seems to take a lot of effort for him to lift his eyes. “Who are you…?” His voice is weak and slurred.

“That’s not your concern,” the man says, turning to point a finger into the camera. “It’s his.” 

Bright squints, blinking the blood and grogginess from his vision. “Who—” 

Another hit. The crack of flesh on flesh sounds like a gunshot in the quiet.

Malcolm wheezes and coughs, his breath stuttering as he slumps. 

“You should save your breath. You’re going to need it.” The man walks to the table. He’s still too planned and poised, too prepared. It doesn’t bode well for any of them, JT thinks.

“ _Sodium Amytal_ ,” he narrates as he lifts a syringe of clear liquid from a tray. “I imagine you know what this is.”

“Fucking christ, I can’t watch this.” JT is half-pacing, tearing himself away from the screen and circling back quickly. He runs shaky hands over his head, gripping the back of his neck as he tries to get his emotions back under control.

He doesn’t know if he can watch what’s about to happen, but above all, he knows he can’t look away either. Can’t tear his eyes from the only clue they have right now.

“What is that?” Gil asks under his breath, leaning closer to the horror unfolding in front of them.

JT has his phone out, rapidly checking the NYPD database for mentions of the drug. He can’t spell it for the life of him, but eventually he’s able to find a profile in the narcotics directory.

“It’s a—a barbiturate, I guess.” JT frowns at his phone, trying to understand the unfamiliar language. “Why would he give that to him?”

“He said it’s mixed with something else.” Gill fills in what JT missed while he was searching for the drug. The lieutenant’s skin has paled, eyes shining in the reflection of the laptop light. He looks about as sick as JT feels.

Whatever is happening appears to make a little more sense to Malcolm than it does to either detective. He jerks in his chair, lips pressed together in a tight line and eyes blown wide with terror as he watches the figure approach. Tries in vain to move away.

Gil and JT can only look on, silent observers, as the man injects the contents of the syringe into the IV bag. Opens up the clamp and lets the liquid flow freely into Malcolm’s veins.

Dani rushes back into the conference room, and she brings backup. Detectives from cybercrimes and a handful of others file in behind her, laptops and equipment in tow. An evidence tech collects the envelope and single sheet of paper. It’s quickly run downstairs for priority processing.

JT watches the tech leave and his stomach sinks, knowing it might be too late despite all their best efforts. He knows he shouldn’t be thinking like this… should be staying positive, but it doesn’t seem possible. Not when one of their own has become a case number. It hits too close to home. 

“You should start feeling the effects shortly,” the suspect is telling Malcolm, watching him with all the clinical detachment of a scientist staring at a rat in a cage. “Don’t get too comfortable.”

It’s a shock to all of them when the man leaves altogether, walking out of frame. There’s the sound of heavy footsteps, a door opening, closing again with a heavy metal echo.

“Gil?” Malcolm turns towards the camera, urgency and terror bleeding into his voice. “Gil if you’re watching—I think it’s you, I don’t know—this isn’t your fault.” 

He pauses for breath, and it’s clear just from looking at him that he’s still disoriented. 

“Do me a favor,” Malcolm all but begs, dropping his head and squeezing his eyes shut like he’s trying to concentrate. “Don’t let JT see this. Please.”

The cop feels his chest tighten, feels the air leave his lungs in a labored rush. Bright doesn’t know. Doesn’t realize that JT has been standing on the other side of the camera this entire time. 

Gil makes a stifled noise of pain. He intertwines his fingers together, his knuckles white, presses both hands against his mouth hard.

Oblivious, stubborn, Malcolm pushes on. 

“I think it’s a Brooklyn accent. Educated. He’s wearing size thirteen shoes. Maybe thirteen and a half… he’s left handed… medical grade equipment. We’re underground somewhere. Can’t hear anything…” 

Dani snaps her fingers at one of the cyber techs, scribbling away at a steno pad as Malcolm spits out clues. One of the detectives finally convinces Gil to give up his chair so they can get to work tracking down the video feed, but neither man can abandon the screen completely. Can’t leave Bright alone in the dark with poison running through his veins.

The profiler is still rambling, clinging to whatever lifeline he knows—or hopes—is at the other end of the blinking camera light.

“Sadistic killers… I assume he plans to kill me, anyways—they’re careful. Planners, they put a lot of work into…” Bright trails off like he lost his train of thought, blinking hard and shaking his head. “They appear normal, you know, want to look like good people. Control and…”

This time Malcolm can’t find his way back, can’t backtrack to his own theories and thoughts. He hunches forward against the leather straps holding him in place, his jaw clenching, muscles tensing. 

“Gil, you need to start going through these,” Dani says with a note of desperation to her voice. She’s holding a stack of case files. “I know it’s hard but you need to _focus_ on this right now. Focus on getting him back.”

Arroyo looks absolutely shattered, his eyes bright with guilt. He nods, but she has to almost drag him away from the laptop to get to work. 

JT doesn’t even try. There’s a detective at work on the computer. A second, larger laptop is set up next to him running lines of code the cop can’t begin to understand. JT stands behind him and stares at the screen, watches Malcolm fall apart in front of him. Helpless.

“Gil I think… I think I was at the subway station when he took me. Hard to remember. I don’t know why it’s so hard to remember.”

Malcolm hunches again, his entire body shuddering in agony as the drugs rip through his system. White knuckled fingers clamp down on the smooth metal arms of the chair, spasming in pain. He’s panting by the time he finally uncoils, his hair falling into his eyes, sweat dripping down his forehead. 

“Don’t—don’t let JT see. _Please._ ”

The words nearly undo him. The cop knows that if he was alone in the room, he would have fallen to pieces right there on the spot. He doesn’t know how he holds it together. Braces himself on the back of the chair in front of him and tries to remember what breathing feels like. 

Before today, JT wasn’t sure how much Gil and Dani knew about his relationship with Bright. Selfishly maybe, he avoided the subject for as long as he could, but at this point he doesn’t much care. 

If they didn’t have their suspicions before, there’s damn well no hiding it now. Anyone with half a brain could take one look at his face and _know._

There’s nothing he can do. Nothing he _wants_ to do besides _act,_ move, run. Anything to help. Anything to stop what’s unfolding in front of their eyes. 

Malcolm falls silent after that, seems to forget he’s being watched. He’s riding out waves of pain mostly in silence, but his infrequent whimpers can’t escape the sensitive microphone completely. Choked sounds of agony that lodge in JT’s eardrums like splinters.

“Where are we at on that trace?” Gil’s voice is deceptively steady, a sound that’s still at odds with his drawn features and the harsh lines of pain on his forehead. 

Anders from cybercrimes, a rail-thin man in his late thirties and already balding, shakes his head as he confirms what they already suspect. 

“He’s using a Tor-based service to host the feed. It’s being bounced through servers all over the country.”

“The fuck does that mean?” JT turns to snarl at him, too stressed to be kind. “Are you saying you can’t find him?”

Thankfully the detective doesn’t seem to take JT’s tone personally. He shakes his head. 

“It means this could take a while.”

**.**

The day devolves into chaos. 

JT is too wrecked to be much use. He’s not familiar with Gil’s old cases; he doesn’t know anything about cyber security or black web addresses or secret servers. 

There’s nothing he can do and it’s driving him up a wall. 

They move their operation into the stateroom, and by now dozens of officers are working to find the profiler. 

Manpower floods in. Once the rest of the precinct catches on to what’s happening, cops from every unit show up to help. Most of them volunteering their time before they’re ever asked, some even driving in on their day off to show support, to find a way to be useful.

It’s a reminder that over time, they’ve all come to consider Bright one of their own.

Detectives set up the kind of equipment JT has never seen before and doesn’t quite understand, but with every new cart of wires and computers they wheel in he can’t help but hope that maybe _this_ will finally be it. Enough to find them a breakthrough of some kind. Enough to find Bright. 

He’s glued to the live feed, and it’s both a blessing and a curse that one of the detectives eventually hooks the laptop up to the massive screen over the boardroom table. 

Now he gets to watch Malcolm suffer in high-definition. It’s torture. 

“Shit, he’s back.” JT finds the words falling out of his mouth, and if he sounds out of his mind with terror nobody has the heart to mention it. 

He looks on in dread as the masked figure re-enters the camera’s field of view. It’s been well over an hour since he left, but it felt like minutes. Minutes they wasted trying to form a battle plan, figure out something they could do to track Malcolm down. 

They have every available pair of hands set to work: scouring traffic cameras, analyzing their sparse physical evidence, tracing infinite servers and redirects to locate the source of the video feed. Boots on the ground checking every subway station within five miles of Malcolm’s apartment. 

For all their effort, it doesn’t seem like enough. Not even close. 

The profiler’s condition has deteriorated rapidly. Whatever’s in his bloodstream now has stripped him of the self-control he was clinging to by a thread. He can’t mask the sounds of pain that tear out of his throat, the violent tremors wracking his body. His light grey shirt is dark now, soaked-through with sweat, and he writhes against the leather bands holding him upright like they’re burning his skin.

“At least you’re still awake,” the masked man says as he stands over Malcolm, Looks down at him through cloth and glass. “Impressive.”

“Gil?”

The lieutenant’s head jerks up at the sound of his own name, fixing on the screen he’s been trying so hard to avoid in the name of making progress.

Bright blinks up at the man standing above him, shakes his head. “Gil, what are you—what are you doing…?”

Dani shoots a confused look at JT, who shrugs helplessly. He’s as blindsided by this turn of events as she is.

One of the technicians from the lab downstairs speaks up, looking up from his glowing tablet. “Whatever it’s mixed with, amobarbital can cause confusion and disorientation. Possibly even hallucinations if it’s administered in large enough doses.”

“He’s hallucinating?” Gil clarifies, abandoning his work to move closer to the screen. 

“It’s possible.”

Malcolm’s reeling, shock and confusion playing out across his face as he looks up at a complete stranger and sees Gil instead. 

“Based on his physical reactions, it’s likely the suspect mixed the amytal with a compound designed to enhance physical sensory input.” Blissfully ignorant of the effect his clinical words are having on the team, the tech goes on, a note of scientific interest to his voice that JT doesn’t appreciate in the slightest. “If that’s the case, any physical stimulation would be dramatically heightened by the nervous system.”

It’s bad news layered on bad news. JT feels his stomach churn, boiling like lava. 

He hates this. Hates that Malcolm is vulnerable and in pain, control stripped away from him. Hates that JT can’t reach through the screen and protect him from whatever’s about to happen. 

Somehow worse still is knowing how Malcolm would feel about all these strange eyes watching him, analyzing every word and movement. Seeing him at his weakest. 

JT can’t even protect him from that. Another failure to add to a long list of all the ways he’s failed today. 

“Wonder what I ever saw in you,” the stranger is saying in his eerily flat voice, leaning down to look into Malcolm’s eyes, propping his hands on his knees. “You’re nothing. Just some stupid kid from some old case.”

The hurt that flashes across Bright’s face is too easy to read, too clear a sign that he’s definitely not thinking straight. No longer seeing a dangerous man, but a familiar face. 

“You probably saw me as a father figure,” the man goes on, filling another syringe and moving casually back to the IV bag. “I mean enough to you that when you’re under the influence, I’m the one you see.” 

JT’s heart sinks. He’s momentarily blinded by the fear that on top of everything else, he might have to watch Bright overdose live and in living color. Miles away, out of his reach.

“But why… Why is that?” the figure stops, looking down at Malcolm’s shaking form. “Why would I want anything to do with someone as weak as you? The son of a serial killer. You have _his_ disease in your blood, don’t you?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. Injects his syringe into the IV line and watches in cold dispassion as the poison hits. It doesn’t take as long as it did before. 

It’s worse this time. Malcolm bends nearly in half, the leather straps creaking against his weight as he clenches his eyes shut and heaves for oxygen. Fists clenched, his body spasming. 

Everyone in the boardroom is utterly silent, horrified eyes watching as it all unfolds in front of them like some kind of macabre production. Carefully designed to break their spirits. To inflict pain from afar. 

Leather slides through canvas loops as the man removes his belt. 

JT thinks he might actually vomit. 

Their suspect folds it in half and circles Malcolm’s chair, letting the leather loop drag like a casual warning across his captive’s skin. It’s predatory and ominous, a carefully orchestrated power play, more for the benefit of the eyes behind the camera lens than the drugged profiler. 

JT jumps when the belt finally falls, harsh and loud across Malcolm’s chest. A line of crimson appears where the buckle caught skin through thin fabric.

Bright is too far gone to be silent. He gasps in pain, rocking backwards, away from the unexpected new source of pain. 

The cop hears the rolling chair he’s holding onto with a vice-like grip creak in protest under his hands, forces himself to relax his white-knuckled fingers. It’s harder than it should be.

Their suspect is either bored or biding his time, because he doesn’t seem interested in beating Malcolm to death in front of them. Instead he watches with disinterest as the profiler struggles against his bonds, struggles to breathe. Rides out waves of pain that are amplified by the narcotics running rampant through his body.

The man turns and drops the belt onto the metal table, strips off his gloves and tucks them into his back pocket.

He walks towards the camera abruptly, stopping to adjust something out of frame. 

“Who do you think we should bring in next?” He says it quietly and almost directly into the lens, pausing long enough to let the gut-wrenching implication of his words sink in.

And just like that he’s gone again, leaving them reeling in his wake. 

.

  
  


Gil hits paydirt a few hours later. 

They’ve been racing against time and they know it. It makes them shaky, sloppy, distracted. 

It’s different when it’s one of their own.

Even JT pitches in, and he doesn’t have the first clue what the hell he’s looking for but sorting tirelessly through dusty boxes of folders seems infinitely more productive than standing in front of the screen, shellshocked and nauseous with terror. 

“James Frazier,” Gil breathes it out like an old memory, straightening up with a brown folder in his hands. 

“Is that him?” JT doesn’t dare to hope. He doesn’t have it in him. 

“I think so.”

Dani darts over, abandoning her own pile of work to look over his shoulder. All told, she’s holding it together better than either of them are.

“He mentioned he lost someone,” she points out, and it’s an unnecessary reminder of one of their only clues but nobody is about to remark on it. “What happened?”

“His son. Connor… His name was Connor. There was a shootout,” Gil says numbly, like he’s far away. “A warrant service gone wrong in Staten Island. Narcotics distribution and trafficking.”

JT feels something in his gut constrict. It’s a familiar narrative and he can already guess the ending.

“What was he doing there?” He almost doesn’t want to ask.

Gil looks over at him, blinking like he’s shaking himself out of a memory. 

“Running drugs across the bridge for the Irish,” he says bluntly. “Trading his time for petty cash. His father never wanted to believe it. Didn’t think his kid could be involved in anything like that.”

“You’re telling me this _freak_ took Bright over some junkie?” JT feels the rage rising inside him, carefully contained up to this moment. He’s reached the limit of what any one man can endure, feels himself slipping. 

Gil’s eyes darken. “He’s not thinking clearly. He lost his son.”

It’s a stab at empathy, the kind JT doesn’t have room for. Not with Bright strapped to a chair somewhere they can’t reach him, burning alive from the inside out. Waiting for them. Waiting for help while they stand in a goddamn conference room and sort through dust and paper. The entire situation is blindly infuriating.

“It’s been eight fucking years,” JT spits out like venom. “I think we can throw the _grieving father_ defense right out the window.”

Gil frowns at the file, his sanity worn too thin to continue arguing. JT almost feels guilty for that. 

Almost.

“Frazier was a pharmacist, and a retired RNA. He’d have access to the kind of drugs and equipment he’d need for… for this.” The lieutenant gestures vaguely at the screen and it’s clear he’s trying not to let his eyes linger too long. Trying to stay focused. 

“I’ll run his name, see where he ended up,” Dani rattles, already bubbling with the hope they’re both still too cautious to feel. “Maybe he’s got a shop or a warehouse somewhere. Could be where he’s keeping Bright.”

She vanishes, and JT turns back towards the screen with ugly fear sitting in his chest like cancer.

“I got something,” the tech hunched over the laptop says. “We may have been able to ping the host.” 

At almost the same time, a dark form reappears on the massive screen. 

_Frazier,_ the cop thinks. It’s strange to have a name to put to him. It was too much to hope that the man wouldn’t come back, wouldn’t have the time to get to Malcolm again before they could track him down. 

Bright makes a visible attempt to straighten up when his tormentor approaches him, naked fear in his eyes.

Drawn like a magnet, JT walks closer to the screen. 

“What are you doing here?” Malcolm struggles to get the words out, and there’s something in the way he’s looking at Frazier. It’s different. The kind of dread that borders on mindless terror. Despair. 

JT knows him well enough by now to recognize the expression as clear as day. Bright isn’t afraid for himself anymore. He’s afraid for whoever he’s seeing right now. Whatever familiar face materialized out of memory and drugged delirium. 

“You tell me,” Frazier says in that toneless voice. “What am I doing here, Malcolm?”

“You—should be with Gil,” Bright gasps out, shaking his head like he knows he’s too groggy to think straight. “You need to get out of here. You’re not supposed to be here—”

Frazier lunges forward, wrapping a hand around Malcolm’s throat and pushing him back against the chair. 

JT feels his hands twitch at his side, that clawing desperation tugging his mind into panic. 

Useless. He’s so fucking useless.

He listens to Bright wheeze for air, and imagines putting a bullet between Frazier’s eyes.

“Not Arroyo this time,” Frazier says thoughtfully. “Who are you seeing?”

From the destroyed look in pale blue eyes, JT thinks he already knows the answer to that. 

When a response isn’t immediately forthcoming, Frazier tightens his grip, shoves Malcolm away with a sound of disgust. He stalks across and retrieves the belt, snapping it against the concrete floor like a warning. 

“Please, JT… don’t—”

The cop feels his eyes flutter closed, his chin sinking like his skull is too heavy to hold up. Everything drains out of him. Hope and pain and fear, gone with a few words. He’s just numb. 

Dani grabs his arm, but it’s distant. Detached. It feels like he’s inhabiting someone else’s body. 

“Don’t watch this,” she tells him with iron in her voice.

He knows he’d be saying the same thing if their positions were reversed. If it was her world being torn to pieces while she watched. Deconstructed brick by brick in haze of delirium and violence. 

JT feels his entire body flinches as he listens to Frazier hit Bright. Once. Twice. Over and over until the numbers blend.

The sound fills his head. Clogs in his ears, reaches down his throat and seizes his lungs. He can’t move. Can’t breathe. 

His eyes are squeezed shut, but he thinks he’ll remember the sound of snapping bone for the rest of his life. The choked scream that rips out of Bright’s throat. 

Without even recognizing what he’s doing JT is moving, shoving past Dani, past the crowd of cops in the too-small room. 

He can’t _fucking breathe._

There are people everywhere. Voices, searching eyes. Sympathy and concern. It’s too much. He stumbles into the nearest dark room, finds himself surrounded by tall shelves of printer paper and office supplies. Presses his back to the wall and crumples in on himself. 

He’s never had a panic attack but thinks maybe this is what it feels like. Lungs constricting, the walls folding in around him like they’re trying to crush him. He’s never experienced anything like it, and he’s flooded by the irrational, distant concern that he might actually die here. Cowering in the dark where he’s safe and warm and everything Malcolm _isn’t_.

Spinning out in the silence in a damn supply closet, miles away from the only person he needs to be protecting. Incapable of lifting a finger. Knowing that somewhere in the heart of his city, Bright is being tortured by a man wearing JT’s face.

Memories filter into his spinning head like slivers of sun. 

He thinks of laying together in Malcolm’s bed, legs intertwined. Watching the sun rise through falling snow. 

The way the profiler’s eyes light up every morning for a heart-stopping moment, the first time he turns and sees JT standing there by the coffee machine. 

The polite greetings in passing behind quirked lips, like they didn’t wake up together an hour ago. Lingering glances and stolen secrets. 

The way it feels to have someone in his life who cares about him. After so many years alone, to have a flicker of blessed warmth in his darkness. Someone he’d give anything, do anything for. Die for. Kill for.

He can’t lose Bright. He _can’t._

It’s the only thought that pulls him out of it, drilling through his raging panic like the sound of a fire alarm. Cutting through everything.

He forces himself to stand up, to wipe his sweating palms on his jeans and _breathe_ , loud in the stillness. Filling his lungs, and taking full, deep breaths again feels indescribably strange. The nerves are still vibrating through his body, but it’s not just fear now. 

It’s adrenaline. The hum of energy at the starting line, waiting for the shot. 

Standing in the corner of a boxing ring. Wrapped knuckles and the taste of hard rubber under blinding lights. Waiting for the bell. Waiting to unleash coiled violence like it’s the last time he ever will. 

When the cop makes it back into the boardroom, the noise and bustle has exploded, overflowing into the hallway. Energy mounting to a fever pitch. 

He ignores all of it and stands in front of the massive screen. Forces himself to watch what’s happening to the man he cares about instead of turning away like a coward.

At some point Frazier has traded his belt in for an electric cattle prod, sparks of electricity buzzing between metal prongs. He stabs it between the profiler’s shoulder blades and listens to him choke on a scream.

JT stares at Bright’s bloody and battered face and makes a silent promise to him.

_I’m coming for you. Hold on._

_Hold on for me._

“Tarmel!”

JT jerks, snapping out of his own simmering rage. He turns to look at Dani. She shoves through the crowd of cops still huddled around the laptop.

“Frazier owns a pharmacy in Dyker Heights. Ground floor with a sub level.”

JT swallows hard. “The feed?”

“Cyber found a darknet key that routed them to a node off Bay Ridge. Chances are good that’s where he’s hosting it. It’s more than enough.”

The cop still can’t pretend to understand most of that, but he recognizes the name of the parkway. 

“What about the warrant?” His voice sounds hoarse and strange to his own ears.

“Gil’s got the judge on the phone.”

The cop breathes. That strange calm settles over him, bringing with it clarity and focus. He turns again to the screen, watching pixels and white noise dance, rolling and swimming as the camera overcompensates for the dim light in Malcolm’s prison. 

Frazier’s nowhere to be seen. Bright is breathing heavy, the sound labored and unsteady. 

The cop stares at his slack features, obscured by blood and bruises, and wonders if Malcolm really saw his face while he was being tortured. If it was JT’s voice, JT’s hands inflicting unbearable pain on him in the cold and quiet. 

And if it was, he wonders if they’ll survive this.

“Mobilize ESU,” Gil snaps at the nearest detective. “Judge Ramsey signed off on the no-knock. They’re faxing the signed warrant back now.” 

“Got two teams in the wings.” A suited lieutenant from across the hall lifts a radio in acknowledgment, ducks out of the room to make the call away from the noise.

“I’m going with them,” JT turns to say, and he looks Gil right in the eyes. Daring him to argue. Feels the coldness come over him like the calm before the storm. 

Arroyo hesitates only a moment, seems to read something in the other man’s face that reassures him. He nods, and goes back to work. Implicit trust and unspoken faith. 

And finally, _finally,_ JT knows exactly what he needs to do.

“Hey—Tarmel.” One of the detectives snags his sleeve as he stalks by, stopping him in his tracks. He’s a stocky bearded man that JT only vaguely recognizes from the Gang Unit. One of the countless volunteers that showed up to help without being asked.

“Bring him back,” the detective tells him solemnly, and it’s only a handful of words but it says more. Means more.

“I will,” JT answers. Thinks he hears the man he used to be in his own voice. Focused. All tempered steel and cold resolve. 

He wonders how he missed this. Malcolm’s effortless infiltration into so many lives. Endearing himself to everyone he touched in spite of his clumsy, awkward ways, or maybe because of it. He thinks it shouldn’t surprise him, not when JT fell for the kid harder than anyone. 

The elevators take too long, and he doesn’t have the patience to wait. He takes the stairs. 

JT spent four years on patrol with ESU, and they don’t question him when he follows them into the locker room downstairs and gears up. Most of them he knows well, others are unfamiliar faces. On any other day, he would have taken the time to greet them. To reminisce on his years with the unit, to laugh and joke with old friends.

Today is different, and the knowledge hangs heavy on their shoulders as they gear up in urgent silence. It’s a process that takes a matter of minutes. 

The cop clambers into the back of the armored truck, sits side-by-side with the others. He stays close to the door. A rifle hangs from a single point sling, swinging against his knees with the motion of the truck as it pulls off from the precinct with a roar from the massive engine.

Everything else is muscle memory. Wrapping a plastic and rubber cord around the back of his neck and settling the earpiece into his left ear. Tugging on fingerless gloves with kevlar plates across the knuckles. One of the sergeants—Ward, his old command—passes him a fleece gator. JT nods his thanks as he pulls it on, adjusts his helmet on top of it and buckles the chinstrap. 

Confident that he’s about as protected as he’s going to get, armor heavy and familiar over his civvies, he spends the rest of the drive with his eyes closed. Breathing. Waiting. Allowing that cold stillness to envelope him completely. 

“Red team, 10-23.”

JT’s eyes snap open. He tugs the balaclava over his mouth and nods back into Ward’s serious grey eyes. 

They park the truck in the alley and approach Bay Ridge Pharmacy from the west, taking the opposite side as the blue team stack. They’re completely silent aside from the click of rushed boots on the pavement, the metallic rattle of equipment. 

There’s a “Closed” sign in the window. Dust gathering on the sil. It’s clear that nobody has used the front entrance in weeks. 

They breach the door in a shower of glass. JT follows Ward inside, a hand on his shoulder as they split off in teams of two with practiced ease. They sweep the room wordlessly. Dust and stale air hangs over crowded shelves and empty chairs. 

“Blueprints show a stairwell at the end of the northeast hallway.” Dani’s voice crackles through JT’s earpiece. She keeps radio traffic minimal, leaving the Tac channel open for the teams to communicate if they run into trouble. “That’s your basement access.”

Ward tips his head towards the back of the store. Moving in sync, they circle the counter and find the hallway behind the office. Stick to opposite sides as they move forward. Quiet footsteps sound behind them as the other teams follow.

JT raises his rifle to cover the door, gives Ward a nod to open it.

The heavy metal creaks loudly despite their best efforts. JT stares down the sights, visually clearing what little he can see down the dark stairwell. There’s a glow of light at the bottom.

“Red 1 heading down to the basement,” an unknown voice narrates through the radio, probably one of the cops behind him. Taking over traffic so the entry teams can stay focused. “Blue team, hold the ground floor.” 

That strange calmness stays with him as JT takes the steps carefully, hugging the wall to give Ward room to shoot past him if he needs to. It takes control of his mind, pushing all the fear and nerves to the background so he can do what needs to be done. Every breath is loud in the quiet, every detail of his surroundings razor sharp. 

The soldier in him rises, steadfast and confident, like a shield to defend his consciousness. Less the mask of _cop, civilian, partner,_ that he’s worn for the last ten years. Instead he’s back in the ruins of Kabul, treading heavy through dusty streets, ready for the worst. Knowing exactly what needs to be done. Knowing that he’s capable of doing it. That he’s ready. 

Frazier is standing behind Malcolm’s chair. Still dressed in black, still masked and hiding behind dark glasses. He’s holding a gun to the profiler’s head. 

JT feels both feet land on concrete as he descends the last step. Distantly registers Ward breaking off from his side to split the room, split the angles.

He isn’t sure why his eyes lock on Frazier’s face. Catching the glint of his own reflection in dark glass. 

In a sudden moment of vivid clarity, JT understands that Frazier never meant to survive this. 

He’d never had a plan besides inflicting as much suffering as possible before the curtain fell. His collected poise and steady hand came not from any grand scheme, but from the peace of watching an hourglass run out. At rest in the absolute certainty that after the sand drained, it would all be over.

JT hears himself breathing. Steady and measured. The pressure of a rifle stock pulled in tight to his shoulder, the curve of a trigger as his finger slides down smooth metal. 

Muscle memory.

He lifts his rifle and takes a single shot. Blood and brain matter explode against the wall as the bullet rips through Frazier’s skull. He falls, a puppet with cut strings. 

It all happens in a heartbeat. 

“Red 1, Shots fired.” Ward’s steady voice crackles across the radio in JT’s ear. “Suspect is down, officers 10-4. Hostage is 10-4.”

The cop’s body finally gives him permission to exhale, and it’s a rush of oxygen like a high. He’s moving. Ripping off his gator, tearing the earpiece out and letting it hang. He leaves Ward to secure their suspect and goes to Malcolm.

“ _Bright_ ,” he calls out to him, and he still feels so much calmer than he should. 

Motionless and suspended underwater, letting the storm break over his head. He’s repeating Malcolm’s name, and he doesn’t know if it’s out loud or just in his mind, but he holds onto it. Clings with everything he has left.

He yanks off the bulky gloves and let them fall to the floor, tugging at the leather straps and buckles that are holding Malcolm to the chair. 

He doesn’t think about the blood. It’s everywhere. 

One step at a time. Every cell and atom in his body keyed into the singular task of getting Malcolm out, getting him _safe._

The straps are locked in place and there are no keys in sight, so he resorts to sawing at them with a pocketknife until they snap loose. It’s a laborious process. The blade wasn’t designed for the heavy material, and he finds himself winded by the time he gets one of the profiler’s arms free.

Something sick and cold catches in his throat as he catches sight of Malcolm’s right hand, the fingers twisted and crooked at wrong angles. He feels himself freeze, his breath stuttering.

Without warning Malcolm sucks in a breath, blue eyes snapping open so quickly it makes JT jump. Bright's gaze lands on the knife in the cop’s hands, and the effect is instantaneous. His body goes rigid, jerking away from the perceived threat as far as he can. 

Malcolm’s mangled hand shoots out, grabbing JT’s arm like he’s torn between pushing him away or holding on for dear life. 

“Woah, woah, easy kid.” JT drops the knife, lets it land on the concrete with a metallic ring. “It’s just me, relax.”   
  


Even as the words are coming out of his mouth he recognizes the futility, the utter uselessness of trying to talk him down. There’s still a needle in the profiler’s other arm, still clear poison dripping down the coiled tubes to flood his veins. He knows he needs to do something about that, and fast, but he won’t be any use to the kid if he can’t keep him from panicking at the sight of him.

“I know you’re not thinkin’ straight but I ain’t gonna hurt you.” JT keeps his voice quiet, keeps his eyes on Bright’s terrified blue ones. Willing him to understand.

Malcolm’s eyes are disturbingly glazed, drifting like he can’t focus right. There’s an ugly bruise swelling around his left eye, trickles of red dripping down his brow. Tracing thin patterns from his battered nose and broken lips. 

Watching through an unfeeling screen was bad enough. Seeing the damage Frazier did to Malcolm, up close, real and tangible, is something else entirely. 

Bright is looking at JT like he’s seeing a monster.

More than anything, it hurts to know that Malcolm is scared of him. Hurts like nothing he’s felt before. The realization that after today the kid might never _stop_ being scared of him, might never be able to see his face without reliving what happened to him when he was drugged and helpless. Alone.

It hits JT like a kick to the solar plexus, tugging dangerously at the mask of focus he’s keeping wrapped around his brain, around his heart. 

“Who—” Malcolm blinks hard, his eyes rolling sluggishly around the room like he doesn’t remember where he is, doesn’t remember anything. 

Selfishly, JT hopes that’s true. 

He can feel Malcolm’s fingers digging into his arm, cautiously moves his own to cover it but stops himself. Even if Bright can’t feel his broken fingers, JT’s not going to let him hurt himself any further. He moves down to his wrist instead, squeezes the cold skin gently. 

The cop waits for disoriented eyes, casting back and forth, to return to his. There’s a desperate fear there that the cop would do anything to banish. To wipe away like a bad dream.

“It’s me,” he whispers brokenly. “The _real_ me.”

JT’s not sure what that means to Bright anymore. He’s not sure if it’s enough to soothe him like it used to, or if it’s just going to make everything worse.

“I need you to let go so I can get you out,” he continues quietly, like he’s talking to a frightened child. And it’s just about how Malcolm looks right now, impossibly thin and pale against blood-slick metal. 

“Can you do that for me, please?”

And the profiler is still watching JT like he’s the one with a gun to his head, like the cop might snap at any moment and _hurt him_. Slowly—too slowly—he relaxes, tremoring limbs unwinding by the barest margin. 

“Good.” JT nods at him gently, determined to stay stoic until all this is over. Determined not to break again. “That’s good.”

The cop forces himself to move, to retrieve the fallen knife. To ignore the buzz of boots and voices filling the room around them and get back to work. As far as he’s concerned, Bright is the only person there with him. The only one that matters.

He pretends not to notice the way Malcolm flinches violently when JT’s hands get too close to his body, the blind panic in his eyes when the knife reappears. 

One step at a time. 

“Not gonna hurt ya,” he repeats, trying to look the kid right in the eyes, to reassure him while he splits his attention. Works to get him out without hurting him more, knowing that every millisecond he drags his eyes away is a chance for him to lose the profiler’s disjointed focus.

“There we go,” he narrates, relief flooding him as he manages to saw through the last leather strip holding Malcolm’s other arm. His fingers are slick with blood, his grip fumbling. He moves to the wider piece across the other man’s chest, wishing there was an easier way to do this. “Hold still, alright? This one’s gonna be a bitch.” 

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Malcolm slurs as he stares at the cop. “I didn’t….”

JT isn’t sure what the profiler is talking about, but right here and now, in Malcolm’s scrambled brain, it’s important. The cop takes advantage of his distraction, working the blade of his pocketknife into thick leather that’s dark with dried blood. 

“He kept asking…” Bright’s voice shakes. “I don’t remember. He wanted me to tell him something. I _didn’t_. Didn’t tell him anything—”

“Shh,” JT hushes him, his throat choked. “I know you didn’t. You’re tough, kid. Toughest son of a bitch I ever met.”

He’s not equipped to handle the way Malcolm looks at him, like the same words he would have brushed off with a sheepish smile before suddenly mean the world to him. 

The strap finally gives way, and JT holds Malcolm up with one hand as he tears it away. Without the support from the straps the profiler seems to crumple, listing sideways alarmingly. 

“I gotcha,” JT says right into his ear, letting Malcolm’s forehead rest heavy against his shoulder. 

His fingers are clumsy and slick as he slides the needle out of Bright’s arm, tossing it away in disgust. He presses his palm against the trickle of crimson that wells up in its place, runs his free hand through Malcolm’s damp hair. It’s as much as he can allow himself. The briefest possible moment of comfort, as much for Bright’s sake as for his own. 

“Copy that, we’re sending paramedics down.” The voice comes through Ward’s radio, and it’s jarringly loud in the bare room. 

JT turns to look up at the other cop, remembering as if for the first time that they’re not alone. Half the ESU officers have already joined them in the basement, securing Frazier’s body and sweeping the adjoining storage rooms. The sergeant is standing close to the pair but has his body turned away, graciously allowing JT the illusion of privacy. However temporary. 

The cop kneels there, lets Malcolm lean on him as they wait for the medics. Pretends not to hear the hitched sobs of pain or fear that the kid is trying so hard not to voice. They rip through him anyways, shaking his thin shoulders, muffled in JT’s vest.

Briefly, JT thinks about radioing for Gil or Dani to come down. Quickly scraps the idea entirely, remembering how badly Malcolm reacted to seeing _him_ for the first time. This is so far outside his field of expertise that he can’t begin to know what he should do, how he can possibly move forward from here. 

He only knows that for a blessed moment, Malcolm is letting him touch him. Letting him hold and comfort as much as he can under the horrific circumstances. 

JT holds on to the kid tight and listens to the noise. Listens to the room buzz with activity. To footsteps coming up and down concrete steps. Radios buzzing with broken static.

When the paramedics try to approach, the tentative hold JT’s keeping on the situation snaps. Bright loses it, scrambling away, almost throwing himself out of the chair as he tries to escape whatever his hallucinating brain is conjuring. 

The cop’s not drugged out of his mind or hemorrhaging blood, so he’s quicker by a hair. He grabs onto Bright, and maybe that wasn’t the right call either. The kid is flailing and fighting for all he’s worth, breath coming in panicked gasps. Feeling JT’s restraining grip seems to make everything worse.

“Malcolm!” JT finds himself screaming at the kid, desperate to keep him from hurting himself, and he doesn’t call Bright that in public but protocol is out the window now. “Malcolm, stop!” 

He pulls the profiler’s thrashing form against his own body, knowing that if he can’t hold him down the paramedics will. 

There’s a low, broken sound coming out of Bright’s chest in between wheezing pulls of air, and it’s agonizing to hear. It’s panic and pain and everything that’s happened rolled into a wordless cry for help. A plea that he’s too drugged to understand has already been answered. 

“Fuck, kid, it’s me.” JT’s all but crying into Malcolm’s ear, his arms wrapped around the profier’s chest as tight as he dares. “It’s _me_.”

JT holds onto the kid with all his strength, trying to quash his own fears for the sake of the trembling man pressed against him. It feels wrong in a way that flips his stomach, holding Bright down while he’s fighting to escape. Knowing it’s what he needs physically, praying that it isn’t doing even more damage in all the ways JT can’t see. 

He’s vaguely aware of the medics kneeling on either side of him, the blur of rushed words and grim eyes. It’s hard to focus on anything but the profiler locked in his arms, his struggles growing weaker as he works himself into exhaustion. 

It takes an instant. It takes years. He’s not sure if they give him something to sedate him, or if Bright finally loses his grip on consciousness and passes out. All he knows is that at a certain point the kid goes mercifully still in his arms, the fight bleeding out of him as he goes limp.

It takes every shred of self-control JT has left to allow the medics to pry Bright’s body out of his grip. 

Ward is there to help, dragging the cop back to his feet, slapping a palm against his chest in silent encouragement. A reminder to pull it together and keep on going. Do what needs to be done.

Without a single word, it’s exactly what JT needs to hear.

The cop surrenders Bright into the paramedics’ care, trusts them to do for the profiler what JT couldn’t. Walks himself through the motions of handing off the rifle still hanging behind his shoulder, stepping across the room to give them space. 

He looks down at Frazier’s body lying on the floor and wonders if he should feel something more than cold dispassion. Anger maybe, sadness or solace. Regret that it came down to bloodshed, or satisfaction that he was the one able to bring their nightmare to an end.

JT doesn’t feel any of that. He’s just tired. 

One by one, the officers involved are cleared out of the scene. They let detectives from another precinct take over what is likely to be a long and arduous investigation. JT goes through the motions without protest.

He meets Gil outside on the sidewalk. The lieutenant takes one look at him and his face crumples, cracks apart at the seams. 

Watching Gil lose his composure is another blow JT wasn’t ready for. He lets the older man pull him into a bone-crushing hug, and even though he’s sweaty and covered in more than one person’s blood, he can’t bring himself to care. He hangs onto Gil like his life depends on it.

Neither man speaks as the city fades dark overhead. There’s too much horror and heartache hanging between them, the heaviness of numb relief that it’s finally over. Sharing the kind of weighted exhaustion that hangs in your bones.

The medics bring an unconscious Bright upstairs once he’s stable, load him into the waiting ambulance. It’s enough to shake JT back down to earth, out of the dull haze where he’s floating, disassociated from the events he’s just been through. 

The cop stares numbly after the ambulance crew, watches Gil open the back door of the rig to climb inside. 

“Are you coming?”

It takes JT a moment too long to understand. He swallows hard, wipes bloody hands on his jeans and nods. He pulls in a deep breath and follows. Sits on the slick vinyl bench seat beside the stretcher and looks down at Malcolm. 

His whole world wrapped up in pale skin and blue eyes hidden by long lashes. 

It doesn’t seem to matter anymore that Gil’s watching, that the medics and driver are lingering like an unwelcome audience. He leans forward over his knees and takes Malcolm’s limp hand in his own, bows his forehead to chilled skin. 

He feels Gil’s palm land on his shoulder, and he’s grateful for it. Grateful beyond belief for silent strength and whatever stroke of luck found them today, allowed them to win out over impossible odds. For the team that’s become his family and sometimes more than that. 

“You’re gonna be okay,” Gil says quietly as the ambulance pulls away from the curb. “Both of you.”

Swallowing the lump in his throat, JT nods. Squeezes the hand he’s holding like a lifeline. 

“Yeah. We’re gonna be okay,” he repeats under his breath. 

He thinks maybe someday he’ll even believe it. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sooo. This was pretty dark, especially after E&H. #sorrynotsorry
> 
> This kind of wrote itself, probably my brain's subconscious rebellion to churning out so much fluff. I do have another one-shot containing the Comfort portion of the H/C planned to follow. Stay tuned! 
> 
> In the mean time come join us over at the #Brimel discord server! (https://discord.gg/K6tqRws)
> 
> Thanks to @eringeosphere for A) being my faithful beta because this story was more of a mess than usual, and B) helping me come up with some ideas for this fic, as well as the title. Credit to @theyhulk for some genius feedback as well. I fucking love you guys. 
> 
> Definitions:
> 
> 10-23: On Scene
> 
> 10-4: Okay/Good
> 
> No-Knock: (No-Knock Warrant) A high risk warrant service, implying that immediate entry without announcement is authorized based on the potential danger involved.


End file.
